1. Technical Field
The presently disclosed embodiments are directed to a method and system of aligning transport modules as could be used in a number of assemblies, such as for a substrate media handling assembly.
2. Brief Discussion of Related Art
In printing systems with a collection of modules transporting substrate media using belts, slight skew misalignment of the modules will cause the module exit and entry velocity vectors to be misaligned. As substrate media is transferred between two modules, the difference in these velocity vector accumulates. The accumulation will translate into substrate media positioning errors between module exit and entry points, particularly in a cross-process direction. Such errors can cause large push, pull or shearing forces to be generated, which transmit to the substrate media being transported. Medium and light-weight substrate media cannot generally support large forces, which will cause wrinkling, buckling or tearing of such media.
Additionally, in overprinting systems more than one module is used to print onto each substrate media. In a belt driven overprinting system, substrate media is transported by belts from an image transfer zone in one module to an image transfer zone in another module. Thus, pushing, pulling or shearing forces on the substrate media can lead to image and/or color registration errors due to undesirable substrate media position or motion through the image transfer zone.